


behind the scenes & moments between

by Azaisya



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Tags will be updated as I add more, collection of oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-07 15:25:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17963132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azaisya/pseuds/Azaisya
Summary: A collection of short studies and scenes I wrote that aren't long enough or complete enough to be their own fic, focused primarily on the NPCs.First chapter has the table of contents and a list of summaries.





	1. Table of Contents

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of these are experimental, and almost all of them have been posted to tumblr first!!

**Table of Contents**

* * *

  _Will be updated as more chapters get updated! All of these are crossposted from my tumblr (@azaisya), where they are originally posted. If you want to send me a request, feel free to send me an ask over there or comment over here. Spoiler warnings, episode numbers, and triggers are in each of the ANs._

  1. **[Episode 58] [Kimallura]** Kima and Allura are awoken by assassins in Whitestone. 
  2. **[Pre-canon; spoilers for episode 40] [background Kimallura]** Allura's, Kima's, and Drake's adventuring party encounter a group of bandits in the woods. 
  3. **[Post-canon] [background Perc'ahlia]** In a quiet moment, Vex and Cassandra talk about past gifts, legacies, and children. 




	2. Assassins in Whitestone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allura and Kima, woken by assassins in Whitestone
> 
> (ep58)

Allura didn't sleep often, and so she relished what little sleep she was able to snatch. Therefore, she was very put out to be awoken by a blade to her gut. 

Instincts from years spent sleeping on the road kicked in, and she lashed out with a Thunderwave before the blade could pierce anything vital. She heard a crash and a yelp but little else as pain spilled like fire through her veins.

She probably screamed, but she could hardly hear it through the pounding of her heart in her ears.

“What—”

The bed shifted violently as Kima snatched her dagger from beneath her pillow and threw it at the dark-cloaked figure crumpled by the wall. He threw himself out of the way and sprang nimbly to his feet, throwing two more knives as he went.

Allura probably swore. She threw herself forwards, crashing into Kima and knocking them both off the bed. The knives sank into the headboard with a heavy _thunk_.

Kima, despite having just woken up, wasted no time sprinting across the room for her maul, ducking beneath another dagger as she did so.

Allura dragged herself to her feet, ignoring the way the world spun, and extended her hand. Without her staff, her spell options were severely limited. In the moment it took her to think, the assassin raced across the room towards Kima.

Kima yelped as his blade sliced across her collarbone, but she managed to dodge his next blow and continue running for her maul.

 _Blight!_ Allura traced a rune in the air and muttered a few words under her breath. The assassin staggered, face suddenly very pale, and Kima snatched up her maul with a triumphant shout. Whirling about, she brought the maul up in a wide arc, divine energy sparking across her hands and her holy symbol.

The assassin barely had time to scream before the maul buried itself in his face.

Ripping her weapon free, Kima scowled down at the assassin’s caved in face. “What the _hell_.”

Allura swayed. “This is why I don’t sleep,” she said mildly.

Kima turned, eyes widening. “Allie, you’re covered in blood.”

“Oh, gods, we’re going to need new sheets.”

Kima made an incredulous sound and walked over to examine the wound. She swore violently. “Allie, you’re— _Tell me next ti—_ It’s what I’m here for—” Her words spilled out, heavy with panic and fear, and her hands settled over the wound. Coolness consumed Allura’s flesh, gentle and reassuring, and her eyes fluttered shut against the familiar rush of Kima’s power.

When Kima stepped away, the wound was closed.

Allura opened her eyes. Softly, she said, “Thank you.”

Kima nodded. “Any time.”

 _Any time_ , Allura thought, remembering the thousands of times she’d emerged from battle unscathed because of Kima.

“We should head up to the castle,” Kima said grimly, “We might not have been the only ones hit.”

Allura paled. “You’re right.” She hesitated. “Let me change first.”

Some of the tension slipped from Kima’s frame, and she laughed. “Of course.”

Allura hastily unbuttoned her night gown and threw on a simple linen shift and a heavier overdress. She still had blood on her skin, but nobody would notice it.

“Ready to go?”

Allura turned to see Kima, her maul over one shoulder and the assassin’s foot in her other hand. “You’re just going to go out in that?”

Kima’s lips twitched. “What, you don’t want me wearing your shirts?”

Allura’s cheeks flushed light pink. “You’re going to be cold. Are you even wearing underwear?”

Kima winked. “Nobody will be able to tell.”

“ _Kima_.” Allura buried her face in her hands and laughed. It’d been so long since they flirted openly, and it still made her heart beat as fast as ever.

“Let’s go!” Kima said cheerfully, throwing open the door and dragging the dead assassin out into the street. "We have to make sure the kiddies at the castle are alive!"

Shaking her head, Allura grabbed two winter cloaks and followed.


	3. a random encounter!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment before Thordak, when they were still young and dumb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoilers for episode 40 by virtue of some characters existing, but they're fairly minor. this takes place pre-canon! 
> 
> ok so bc the rest of Allura's and Kima's party members are basically ocs, there's an explanation at the end

They didn't have the money or the resources to teleport—"Not yet," Drake insisted, "But I'm working on something." Allura rolled her eyes and whispered to Kima, "He's just trying to invent a flashier version because he hasn't figured out the proper intonation for Teleportation yet."—and so their intrepid band of adventurers spent much of their time walking through the vast uncharted lands of Tal'dorei.

"Adventuring," Dohla declared, with all the flair and panache a high elven barbarian raised in a hut in the mountains could muster (which was not a lot), "is not adventuring at all. It's walking, and occasionally adventuring."

"Wow," Sirus said, with all the sarcasm and impassiveness that a high elven ranger raised in a hut in the mountains could muster (which was quite a bit).

Dohla made a face at her brother. "I'm just saying! Adventuring is much more boring than I was led to believe."

Which was of course when an arrow flew out of the undergrowth and sunk into Dohla's chest with a dull _thunk_.

"Huh," she said mildly, looking down at it.

"Bandits!" Drake shouted, drawing his wand and flicking it at the trees. A handful of humanoids—all wearing black masks and rough armor—spilled onto the road to avoid his spells.

Kima drew her maul and sprinted for the biggest bandit with the biggest sword. He laughed as she approached, seeing nothing but her short frame and golden hair. He stopped laughing when she bared her teeth in a feral grin and slammed her maul into his face.

"Not so amusing now, am I?" she snipped, pulling the maul back and dropping into a defensive stance.

He spat a globule of blood and saliva at her feet and pointed his sword at her face. "I'm gonna fucking k—"

She stepped forwards to hit him again, but a single bolt of arcane energy slammed into his face and forced the bridge of his nose out the back of his head. Whirling around, Kima jerked a thumbs-up in Allura's direction. "That was really hot!" she shouted.

Allura's cheeks flared bright red. "Thanks."

"Bahamut preserve us," Ghenn said loudly, forked tongue flicking out, "You two are incorrigible." They threw their knife at one of the smaller bandits—probably a goblin or a gnome—and ducked behind a tree.

On the other side of the road, Dohla slipped her brass knuckles—made from the same blue-grey metal as her brother's bow and humming with the energy of a storm—over her fingers and punched the nearest bandit in the face with a _crack_ like thunder. She grinned, unperturbed, as his sword sliced a gash across her forearm.

Several paces away, Ghenn appeared out of nowhere, slipping out of the shadows and slamming their blades into a chink in one of the bandits' armor; at the same time, Sirus' arrow found the bandit's throat with a crackle of lightning.

Near the front, Drake whirled around, fire and lightning shooting from his wand with an unrestrained savagery that he kept tightly leashed off the battlefield. One eye he kept trained on the younger, more reckless members of their party: on Kima and her single-minded ferocity, on Allura and her tendency to forget she wasn't wearing armor, on Ghenn and their flippant threading of the line between rashness and foolishness.

Within seconds, the battle was over. Bodies lay scattered across the road. One or two had been flattened against the trees.

As soon as she was satisfied with the state of the last bandit's head—mushy like gravy left too long over a fire—Kima ran over to Allura and hopped up to tug her braid. "How is your hair still perfect?" she asked, cheeks flushed with adrenaline and eyes shining with adoration.

Allura opened her mouth, but then her eyes dropped to the way the nicks and cuts on her arms were closing up and she smiled instead.

"You two," Drake announced, "need to stop flirting in the middle of— Ghenn, where are you?"

Ghenn popped their head out from behind a bush, copper scales and dark leathers nearly invisible in the undergrowth. "I'm alive!"

Sirus poked his sister with the edge of his bow so that he wouldn't get blood on his new leather gloves. "How was that?" he asked drily, "Enough adventuring for you?"

Dohla looked down at the viscera splashed over her knuckles and all the way up her arms. With a broad grin—her smile a slash of white on the blood-red that covered her face—she declared, " _That's_ not adventuring. That's just a side-effect of walking."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dohla is a high elven barbarian. Sirus is her twin brother, and he's a ranger. Ghenn is a bronze dragonborn rogue (they have a tail). At this point, the entire party has been together for at least a month.


	4. a break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quiet moment after everything: Vex and Cassandra talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for the end of the campaign! This is technically long enough to post on its own but I don't feel like it's complete enough?? If that makes sense?

"You know," Cassandra said, even as she threw her dagger and it landed squarely in a knot on the wall, "I'm the one who got Percy his first workshop."

Vex, sitting on Cassandra's bed and fletching her arrows as the splinters rained onto the covers, looked up. "Did you?"

"I was five, I think." She flicked her wrist, and the dagger flew back to her hand, summoned by the magic bracelet Gilmore had given her last Wintercrest. "Father tried to give him a horse. I told him no, Percy would rather have the workshop that nobody's been using."  _Thunk._ The dagger sank into the wall again.

Vex's lips twitched, amused at the mental image of Cassandra—tiny and dark-haired and belligerent—being perceptive enough and nosy enough to do that. "Did you?"

 _Fwip_. The dagger flew back to her hand. "I did. Percy was delighted. Father already had bought the horse, of course, so I begged him for it." A slight smile flickered across her face, the merest twitch of lips otherwise flat. "He said I was too young and gave it to Vesper."  _Thunk_. The hole in the wall deepened.

"Does Percy know about that?" Vex asked, leaning back against Cassandra's pillows so that she could pick the splinters out.

 _Fwip_. Cassandra caught the dagger and examined its smooth silver surface. "No." Another flick of her wrist and  _thunk_. "He never found out." Her smile vanished. "You know, you shouldn't name your children after me."

Vex's hand dropped to her stomach, which was only now beginning to show. She and Percy had so very many names they loved. Johanna, Vesper, Whitney, Elaina, Velora. Cassandra. "Oh?"

"Cassandra isn't a family name."  _Fwip_. "My mother insisted on it, because I was the last and she’d always liked the name."  _Thunk_. "Funny, isn't it? That Cassandra was the last and she isn't even a proper de Rolo."

Vex sat upright, eyes narrowing. "You're a de Rolo, darling. Nobody can take that from you."

Cassandra didn't say anything, blue-grey eyes locked on the dagger as it sat in the wall, quivering still from the force of her throw. At length, she said, "I am—" There was something strange in her voice, a quiet whisper of malcontent. "—just another ghost story for the de Rolo line."

Vex quietly got to her feet and came around the side of the bed where Cassandra stood, straight-backed and regal in the darkness of the room. "Something on your mind, Cass?"

Cassandra blinked once, twice, eyes opening wide as if she'd been sleeping before.  _Fwip_. She caught the dagger with a snap of her wrist. "Nothing, really. Just— just don't. I'm not the sort of person you name children after."

Vex’s brow furrowed. She reached out, two fingers brushing lightly against Cassandra’s chin so that she could turn her face and see her eyes. There was nothing there, of course. Cassandra was good at crafting masks, and she’d only excelled in recent years as she dove further into the politics of Whitestone and the politics of her own living. “You don’t have to have a legacy to have children named after you, darling,” she said, voice gentle. “Percy and I love you very much.”

Cassandra shrugged. “It just feels like poor form, I suppose.” Her head dropped to the dagger in her hand. Her thumb darted over the edge of the hilt and flicked across the blade until dark crimson beaded across her skin. "Like bad luck."

Vex’s fingers twitched, but touching Cassandra suddenly seemed like a very poor idea. She was in a  _mood_ , as Percy, exasperated and afraid and still flinching from guilt, called them. Cassandra herself seemed aware of it and perhaps even a little sorry, but she also didn’t seem to care.

A flash of movement as the gold beads on her sleeve cuffs glittered in the firelight and  _thunk._

Vex stared at the blade, buried nearly to the hilt in the wall, and said with false levity, “Maybe we should go outside, Cassandra. I’ve been feeling a little cooped up.”

Cassandra’s eyes, locked on her dagger, narrowed. “Percy,” she said sharply, “doesn’t know anything.” Her shoulders dropped, eyes flicking briefly to Vex’s tense frame. “Does he?”

“He knows,” Vex said carefully, slowly, gently, “quite a bit.”

“He does _.” Fwip_. “He killed me, the first time _.” Thunk_. “You killed me the second time.”

All of Vex’s breath escaped her in a sudden rush, iron bands clamping around her heart and lungs and squeezing. She would always remember—could never forget—the moment of horror when the dark knight’s helmet had fallen off to reveal Cassandra’s white-streaked hair and glassy grey eyes.

Cassandra, now, alive and well and eyes still glassy, turned to look at Vex. “It’s strange, isn’t it? Dying and coming back again?” She held up her hand, her bracelet gleaming—

Vex’s breath shuddered, clawing at her insides and howling up out of her mouth. “I’m— I—”

 _Fwip_.

Vex flinched.

Wordlessly, Cassandra tucked the blade into the sheath hidden in her skirts. Without looking at Vex, she collapsed onto the bed, hair billowing out behind her and curling around the half-constructed shards of Vex’s arrows.

Vex's eyes squeezed shut, and she drew in her breath in a sharp gasp. She despised herself for shooting without thinking, blamed herself for killing her sister-in-law, but—

 _It wasn't your fault,_ Percy always insisted, although he never liked to talk about it.

He didn't like to talk about Cassandra at all, really.

Too much guilt, she'd always thought, but now—

Now, looking at Cassandra lying stone-faced in the bed, she thought perhaps that it wasn't guilt at all. It was recognition.

Vex loved Percy dearly, but she knew he could be terribly, coldly, maliciously vicious if he wanted.

This was the first time she'd seen that viciousness in Cassandra.

 _This isn't about you_ , the part of Vex's brain that had always been so very perceptive whispered. "Cass," Vex said, forcing feigned lightness into her tone, "Come outside with me. We'll take a walk to the Sun Tree."

Cassandra didn't move. "You aren't listening to me." Her voice was both frustrated and plaintive, but her expression was still stone-smooth.

With false aplomb, Vex replied, "I think you're just saying things to get rid of me."

The corners of Cassandra's lips twitched, and her eyes flicked over to meet Vex's. "I see."

"Hmm. Yes, you do." Vex hesitated for just a second before sitting beside Cassandra and resting a hand on her shoulder. It was always a gamble, with her. She reacted to comfort with prickly anger just as often as she clung desperately to it. Now, though, she just stared, dark eyes narrowed. Softly, with as much love as she could, Vex whispered, "You don't have to, you know."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Cassandra said blithely, but she didn't shift away from Vex's hand.

"You don't have to push us away." Vex's fingers squeezed tightly: a silent promise. "You've been wronged, and I'm—" Her breath caught once more in her chest. "—so sorry for my part in it. But we can help you fix it."

Cassandra's lips twitched again, but this time it was less of a grim smile and more of a waver. "You  _killed_ me."

Vex flinched, but she gritted her teeth and refused to move. "So let me help you."

Cassandra's eyes squeezed shut, her face contorting as her mask broke and the tears flowed over her cheeks. "Can you?" she whispered, every inch the broken girl she really was, "Is that possible for me, anymore?"

"It's  _always_  possible," Vex whispered fiercely, "It  _will_  get better."

Cassandra's eyes flew open, expression terribly raw and desperate after the unfeeling façade she'd maintained before. "How?"

"Well," Vex said, standing, "We can start by going outside." At Cassandra's doubtful expression, she shrugged her shoulders. "You'd be surprised what the sun can do for you." Her eyes flicked to the hole in the wall and she added wryly, "And then we can throw around some knives properly."

Wary and tired but hesitantly listening, Cassandra slid from the bed. "Alright. Let's go."

* * *

(And, years later, after Cassandra learned to be comfortable with knives in her hands and warmth in her heart, Vex put the newest de Rolo, a tiny baby with tapered ears and dark brown hair and blue-grey eyes, in her arms and simply said, "Meet Cassia.")

(Cassandra cried when she heard that, and when Cassia awoke with a squall she rocked her until she fell back asleep)

(And that was that.)

**Author's Note:**

> (i take prompts on tumblr @azaisya)


End file.
